The waiting game is on (Over!)

[Southern by choice]

Sweetened... I know this is your kidding thread but had to share my misery....
Tomorrow am it will be 12 degrees... will feel like -1. High tomorrow a brief 24 that will feel like 13-18. I am not cut out for this. It is so cold. My chickens have frostbite from the last go around... why would anyone move from the South to the North? EVER???
Do you worry about your kids freezing?

 

[Martin Farms]

I am in the same boat as you Sweetened. Due in Feb. but have one of my nanny who looks like she is ready to explode! She is my best boar we have, always throws 2 big kids or 1 monster kid. This will be my 4th time kidding, but unfortunately, we pulled our billy goat out this summer and put him in a lot across the road and he always managed to get out and in with our nannies!! Now I'm not 100% sure when I'm gonna have kids with some of my goats!! I know for sure of 5 of our 7 thats bred and showing. But Big Nanny's ( my kids named her last year while she was bred, they'd always say "There Big Nanny Mommy!!") vulva is very puffy and at times she's very affectionate towards me,as she normally isn't! She is starting to get her bag, just waiting and very excited about kidding time!! I need to get over asap as its in the negative here this morning and make sure no babies born last night!! But Star is starting to get pretty heavy and Stripy is getting heavy but no bags yet. My husband laughs at me cause I always get so excited this time of year, but who doesn't get excited when its time for babies!!! All my animals (dogs, chickens, goats & cattle) are like my kids LOL!!

 

[Sweetened]

GOOD LUCK Martin Farms, keep us posted. You can post here if you don't have your own thread, I'm totes good with that!

Southern: Jack threads I make any time, and I mean that sincerely. Conversation is an organism that evolves and changes -- it always loops back around.

I'm Canadian. My Mom married an American years ago and, as I was quite young, I moved with her. Things went awry both with the immigration process and I ended up moving back to Canada to start my life as an adult! I originally moved to BC, into a growing zone that's the same as Georgia (surprising, yes?), but moved on a whim out to the prairies. I love it hear, though it has the one thing I hated most about the south: tornadoes. I enjoy the cold. At -30, -40 it's almost always sunny and beautiful. I like to say: you can always put more on to be warm, but there's only so much you can take off to get cool.

I worry about kids freezing for the single reason that the breeding was badly timed. An amature mistake. However, farmers start calving and kidding here starting in January. Really, it's the wind here that kills things, and I'd prefer to kid earlier so you can make your selections before winter and grow up bucklings for butcher around winter's onset. As long as you can keep them out of the wind, they're usually fine. Even my goats have to come out into the wind to eat. I do that because it hardens them up. If they're exposed to the cold and the wind, they fur up for it, whereas if they're babied and sheltered they become susceptible, should something go wrong.

I specifically raise cold hardy breeds. Swiss breeds, the Chantecler and so on. Just about choices. Hyrdration, food, breeze-free digs, and it's all good.

 

[Sweetened]

Agnes looked to have really dropped last night. She was very hollow. Probably teasing. Murielle is no longer showing any signs and isn't bagging up.

 

[Martin Farms]

They sure are good at teasing ain't they!! Mine are really throwing me through loops sometimes! Hope your babies come soon and Good Luck!!

 

[Sweetened]

I am going insane! I spend the time out there looking at the goats, Agnes in particular. Has she dropped, has she raised, is she poofy, is she goopy, is she talking to herself or other goats, is her tailbone raised or is that just how she stands? *pull out old pictures from the day we got her, compare. Compare again. mutter, put pictures away, quickly pull them back out, compare again.*

 

[Sweetened]

When I went in to feed and check on the girls, Agness was sleeping on the other side of the pen by herself. They usually all curl up together.

 

[Bucking Adoeable Fainters]

Ooooo! That sounds promising!
Bambi Just looks at me like, no mom not yet. Stop starring. Ugh! I was doing perfectly fine until she pulled the fake out false labor on me last weekend!!!! Stinkers!!! Killing us with our anticipation! !!
I'm so thankful I know exactly which days my other 2 were in cycle and were with their bucks! I will not be doing this living together unmonitored cycle nonsense ever again!

 

[Sweetened]

I agree. I will be learning how to bring the girls in heat and walk them to the boy of my choosing to fraternize for a day.

She was apparently, just kidding (like joking, not like baby), but has a bit more of a bag on her.

 

[Sweetened]

Agnes, who is not friendly and doesn't cuddle, and I had a moment.